The Winter Militia Readies For Action

Let it sleet, let it rain, let it snow--the troops are
prepared

By Greg RienziThe Gazette

While the leaves continue to fall and that Thanksgiving
dinner settles in your
stomach, an invisible army at the Hopkins institutions is
preparing for battle. And like
minutemen, they stand ready to jump into action when called
upon.

But the enemy they face is not flesh and blood; it's the ice
and snow.

For those in maintenance and groundskeeping, now is the time
of the year when
preparations are being made to deal with the threat of winter
storms. That means
plows are being brought out, inventories checked, and contingency
plans for that first
snow storm readied for implementation.

William "Biff" Brown, grounds manager at Homewood, says that
although his
crew is still dealing with the current season's offerings, that
first winter storm is
certainly in the back of his mind.

At Homewood, grounds manager Biff Brown is
preparing his artillery for winter battle.

"Right now we are still heavily involved with leaf removal,
but as soon as we get
that done we will set up for the snow," says Brown, now in his
15th year at Hopkins.
"Currently we are inspecting the equipment, and next week we will
start putting the
snow removal equipment together."

Yet, Brown quickly adds, if a storm were to hit right now,
"we would still be able
to act. All the stuff is lined up. Within an hour we would get
some plows on the road."

To combat the winter elements, Brown has an assortment of
artillery from which
to choose, including five four-wheel-drive trucks outfitted with
plows, five tractors with
plows, several hand-held salt spreaders and one truck equipped
with a spreader for the
nearly eight tons of ice-removing material and the 20-ton pile of
sand stored on
campus. In the event of a freezing rainstorm, Brown says his crew
can cover the
campus in salt and sand within just a couple of hours.

In order to do this, Brown has a crew of 14 that is on
24-hour call in the event of
a storm. In the case of a heavy snowstorm, Brown has even more
people he can count
on.

"When needed, I can call on housekeeping and some of the
other shops to borrow
some manpower. Generally we don't need to use them," says Brown,
whose base of
operations is a garage on Remington Avenue behind the Johns
Hopkins Health System
buildings, "but we had one huge snowstorm a couple of years ago
where we had to use
everybody we could find."

The storm Brown mentions was back in 1996, when his crew and
volunteers had
to stay fours days straight on campus to clear the snow, working
around the clock in
shifts.

In a similar system, the Applied Physics Laboratory also has
a volunteer snow
crew on standby.

Glenn Carey, whose full-time position at APL is facilities
projects manager, serves
as APL's snow emergency coordinator. For Carey, the winter means
staying on top of
weather reports.

Carey works closely with Glenn Bailey, operations supervisor
of automotive
maintenance, who organizes the 50 or so staff and volunteers who
clear the snow and
spread the salt to keep pathways clear. Carey says that many
ongoing research
projects are being conducted inside the facility, and it's vital
that all necessary personnel
can get in and out of the buildings.

"We are tracking weather reports to see what the trend is
going to be. If [snow
is predicted and] that means coming in at 4 a.m., we do it,"
Carey says.

If the snow were to continue for more than one day, Carey
and the snow crew
are also prepared to stick it out to ensure that the 13 staff and
two visitor parking
lots are cleared and that there is access to all the
buildings.

"We have a dormitory set up with sleeping quarters," says
Carey, in reference to
a room filled with beds and partitions so that the snow removal
crew can stay on site.
"We are planning for the worst event."

Meanwhile, in East Baltimore, Robert Diblasio is making a
list and checking it twice.

Jerry Miller, left, and Bob Diblasio will
be ready to clear the drives and walks in East Baltimore.

Diblasio, director of maintenance and operations for the
School of Medicine, is a
veteran of 12 winters at Hopkins and has the preparation down to
a science.

At the top of his checklist is making sure that all
equipment--snow blowers,
spreaders, shovels and plows--is ready for the snow. This
involves testing the equipment
and simulating its usage.

Diblasio's next order of business is to make sure he has
enough inventory to get
through the winter, which means determining where he can get more
materials if
something runs out.

For example, Diblasio points how the 1996 storms forced the
closing of many
local services, such as gas stations.

"Snow plows aren't very useful without gas," Diblasio says.
"So we always check
with area stations to make sure fuel will be available."

Diblasio is also responsible for manning the command post in
the basement of the
Wood Basic Science Building in the event of a storm. Located
there is the campus's
24-hour customer service line where a volunteer gives staff,
faculty and students
up-to-the-minute weather reports and status as to the access to
all the medical
buildings. It's also from the basement that Diblasio's' support
staff can coordinate the
snow removal in the schools of Medicine and Nursing and stay in
contact with the
grounds crew at the School of Public Health and at the hospital.
"We each have our own
territory, but in a pinch, we help each other out," he says.

Diblasio says he normally relies just on his maintenance
crew to deal with snow
removal. But, like the other institutions, he also has reserves,
such as housekeepers and
contractors, to call upon.

"We wait for the heavy snow to call upon them; but when it
comes, the customer
service people get right on the phone to our volunteers and say,
'It's showtime,' "
Diblasio says.

If need be, the volunteers will be picked up at their homes
and brought to
campus. He also has instituted a buddy system so that snow
removal volunteers can
drive in together.

"We don't want anybody out there alone in a big snowstorm,"
Diblasio says.

As for being called out in the middle of night or during
dinner to help clear the
snow, most members of the emergency crews agree they prefer it
that way.

"A mid-morning snow is the hardest to deal with. The campus
is full, and it's
almost impossible to clear the lots," Brown says. "I like to see
storms come in the
middle of the night. That way we can be here without the student
and staff population
and have it clear by morning."

The maintenance crews at all the campuses also understand
that Hopkins
institutions have a reputation for not closing. According to
Diblasio, that is a testament
to the diligent work put in by all the staff and volunteers.

"I think some people here think it's magic that the snow
goes away in the middle
of the night."

Snow closings

To find out whether Hopkins is closed in snowy or icy
weather, call the university's
weather emergency telephone lines. After an overnight storm, the
emergency message is
usually recorded by 6 a.m. Decisions on part-time evening classes
are usually made by 1
p.m. During major storms, the line is updated frequently with
details about library hours,
shuttle service and the like.

Within the Baltimore area, call 410-516-7781; from outside
the area, call
800-548-9004. APL maintains a separate number, which is
443-778-6101. The
information also is available on JHUniverse at
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/emergency/.